: There is one more fact that has been alluded to but given rather little importance. It is this. A significant proportion of the rugs that have been dated by C-14 come back with dates that everyone agrees are unreasonable. In every one of those instances (unless my memory is going selective on me again) the carbon dating was much earlier than the true age. One of these was, as I recall, a new rug (therefore of unambiguous age) that came back as a few hundred years old.

: This ought to raise a prominent red flag. If the dating is obviously off in a significant fraction of the rugs (say, more than 5% or 10% of those tested), and always in the same direction, then we can be skeptical of the C-14 dating on the rest of them. And that skepticism will be that the reported ages are likely to be too far into the past. This line of reasoning is completely independent of what we know or suspect to be the sources of error.

: Steve Price

: My personal opinion is that most German C-14 results are about 75-100 years too early. I need to see an Eagle gull type 1 of an early group, such as Elmbys', I have long thought those should be 16th century. Why? 17th century Turkoman material is done under generally very harsh conditions. The 16th century Turkoman may well have been heavily influenced by foreign designs simply because of their power they would have played a prominant role in the trade routes between East and West. These Eagle gull carpets have weave characteristics that are very similar to the finest Safavid weavings. Their iconography defines the secret,then, production secrets of silk manufacture. The wheel, the boiling water, the silk worms are all clearly represented. The worms heads are adorned with "antenae" much like an eagle representation often is. These insects were and are important. I expect these to date early. Jim Allen